


Chocolates

by WahlBuilder



Category: Mars: War Logs, The Technomancer (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Family Fluff, Gen, Post-Canon, and nothing hurts anymore (much), twenty headcanons in a trench coat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:27:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22066243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WahlBuilder/pseuds/WahlBuilder
Summary: Connor expects Sean to find him to exact revenge for Connor's spilling Sean's secrets to Roy.Sean does find him.
Relationships: Sean Mancer & Connor Mancer
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Chocolates

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Haaska](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haaska/gifts), [Modlisznik](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Modlisznik/gifts), [Salmaka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salmaka/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Chocolates](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15876090) by [Modlisznik](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Modlisznik/pseuds/Modlisznik). 



> Continuation of [Chocolates](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17646809). It's Chocolateception.
> 
> May your year be full of good chocolate.

Sean finds him on a rooftop, looking at the city. It is not that Connor is hiding, exactly. He hopes that Sean would appreciate the little joke between them — a throwback to past occurrences and lives.

Connor remembers when Melvin used to do this back in Ophir, years ago, those rare times when he was with them: getting onto the dormitory’s roof and looking at the colorful lights of the Exchange and flares from the Slums, so big and bright they reached even to the Upper Ophir. Connor remembers Sean doing this, too, searching for gaps in the dome — searching for the sky, the stars.

Noctis has tiers, too, and they are colorful — and yet it’s something different. Connor doesn’t have to explain it to anyone, anymore, so he doesn’t try to find words for it and simply watches: the city and the sky. Ian has been drawn into the younglings’ customary crawl through various eateries a few hours prior, but Connor stays away from those adventures since the first time he ended up with indigestion.

“Can’t sleep, Father?”

“Not without my husband.”

He knows they both enjoy this: the freedom to call things by their proper names.

Connor notices out of the corner of his eye as Sean sits down beside him, pulls his legs to his chest. For long moments, peaceful, undisturbed, they watch.

Finally, Sean looks at him. “Zach told me about this hiding place of yours.”

Sean still often calls Zach by his full name, but there is this new form, this “Zach” with a soft “ch”. Nobody else says it like that.

Connor smiles. “What a rogue! I thought spending a few years with you would teach him to keep secrets to himself.”

“Not when you divulge secrets to others.”

There is only playful accusation in Sean’s tone, and Connor knows immediately what Sean has come to exact revenge for.

“Ah, you probably want to know what Roy gave me in return.” He wraps his arms around his knees, too, and hides his smile in them as he looks at Sean.

“Please tell me, Father, so I would know what bribes you take now.”

Connor glances at the city. Lights scatter on a wind chime.

“Just your happiness, my boy. Just that.”

It used to be a hidden word, a thing to keep close to the heart, behind closed doors, and sometimes without touch at all: a flare of the field for a moment or two, a spark for a caress. A praise in curt words. A chocolate slipped into the pocket.

And now that it’s unfurled, it turns out happiness exists in many forms beside that — it turns out that it’s huge, high like the open sky. Impossible to conceal. And they don’t have to conceal it anymore.

“So the prescription, in your mind, against my melancholy is an insolent brother?” Sean sounds almost genuinely outraged. Almost.

Connor chuckles. “You are a good prescription against Melvin’s melancholy, after all.” He lowers his cheek onto his arms and looks at Sean, and sees tenderness and gratefulness in his eyes. “And your family being free, your boy with you, safe and whole and happy, your siblings healing.”

“My fathers being happy, too,” Sean says quietly. “It is an important ingredient in the medicine.”

Then Sean tilts sideways, leaning on Connor’s shoulder, and Connor wraps an arm around him. It is not a worry, to bear his weight. The burdens of them all.

“Chocolate was considered a good medicine, once,” Connor notes.

“And I intend to have as much of it as possible,” Sean says.

They watch. Alive. Together.


End file.
